Musical paddocks.

Well yesterday we gave the herd their due vitamin AD & E injections - we had to plan where to corral each group very carefully, so that we could catch each individual without skidding onto our a*ses in the muddy conditions. The permanent, dry shelter is being used by the weaning group, and so it would have been logistically awkward to try and manouevre each of the other groups over to that shelter - anyway, it all went to plan.

However, with the constantly damp-to-wet conditions, the condition of all paddocks is poor, and while we are resting one paddock at all times, we have to move a new group onto it before it recovers properly, as the other paddocks deteriorate, just to allow each group to occasionally have somewhere dry to sit at night. So it was, that today we had another move around, moving a group of females into the 'rested' paddock, moving Scrumpy into the paddock where the females had been, and creating a 'weight-watchers' group of females needing to slim, who moved into Scrumpys prevoius paddock. We gave Scrumpy a couple of hours in the orchard/alotment - he thought he had died and gone to heaven, before moving him off to his new paddock! The 'weight-watchers' were seriously un-impressed with their new 'squelchy' paddock.

Our weanling has the use of the dry shelter with her companions, and we hope her fleece will clean up before the National show, but it all depends how dry the paddock becomes during the daylight hours, whether her fleece actually improves or not - and one of the males, also in the show team, is in a damp paddock with some straw bedding in an open (but damp) shelter.

We can only hope that, either we get a long frosty spell before the show (not going to be this week), or, the judge seriously looks beyond the external (paddock condition) appearance, and takes notice that these animals have clearly had more fesh air and natural daylight, than the clean alpacas that have been kept in large dry barns - we've done our best, we can only hope.

Meanwhile, halter training has continued, with the lure of the squelchy but almost un-grazed lawn being the treat.